


Holiday

by Libbyfay



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), Canon Compliant, Hurt Crowley (Good Omens), Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Realization, Softie Crowley (Good Omens), Supportive Aziraphale (Good Omens), Sweet, Temptation, The Ineffable Plan (Good Omens), Vacation, Worried Aziraphale (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 17:26:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20067784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Libbyfay/pseuds/Libbyfay
Summary: Although sitting on opposite sides of a park bench is all very nice, Crowley makes a radical suggestion.  Aziraphale says no, obviously, and then reaches for the only objection he can think of.  After hearing the same blasted argument for 6000 years, Crowley loses his cool.





	Holiday

**St. James Park – 1983**

“Probably shouldn’t…” Aziraphale was saying, as usual.

Crowley rolled his eyes behind his glasses but continued to lounge as if he couldn’t care less. The first round was always met with a ‘no’, obviously. He let the silence stretch, so that the angel had time to think about it. 

Aziraphale allowed himself to consider the proposal and became increasingly agitated. He twisted his hands in his lap, looking at the ducks instead of the demon on his left. The ducks were nice. The bench was fine. They were having a lovely day out, enjoying the park. Of course, they were also sitting as far apart as the bench would allow, which, Aziraphale admitted to himself, wasn’t as nice as it could have been. 

But still, their usual meeting places were just fine. Pretty much fine, anyway, and more importantly, proven to be safe. A bench in St. James Park was good enough for all the world’s _other_ opponents. Ambassadors, diplomats and double agents held their clandestine meetings here, and Aziraphale was quite sure that they didn’t, then, head off on holiday together.

So, why did Crowley always have to push it?

“Why are you always…” Aziraphale trailed off.

“What?” Crowley retorted, innocently.

“You know.”

Crowley _did_ know. It was his job, unofficially of course, to make Aziraphale, by-turns, massively uncomfortable and happier than he would have been otherwise. This time around, he wasn’t proposing a disobedience or even one of the Arrangement’s many transgressions. He was simply going out of London for a few days, on assignment as it were, and had asked whether Aziraphale wanted to come with.

“All those customers keeping you busy, then?” Crowley jibed. “I know how much you hate to miss a sale!” The demon had him there, so he couldn’t claim that the bookshop needed to stay open over the weekend. 

Aziraphale wasn’t sure whether he wanted to know the details of his adversary’s assignment, but curiosity got the better of him, “What’s in Brighton, then?” 

“Me,” Crowley said with a disarming grin. “I’m gonna be in Brighton!”

Aziraphale’s stomach flip-flopped, and he strangled the fingers of his left hand with his right. There was that feeling again. Wanting, he wasn’t sure what, maybe just to give in and laugh. Aziraphale didn’t look up, didn’t laugh.

Crowley continued, “And besides that, there’s lovely scenery. Fresh air. Botanical gardens, I think. Oh, and it’s not far from the ruins of a big hillfort. I visited it once in the Bronze age.” He tried not to sound too eager. For a temptation to work, he had to play it cool. Best not to mention the idea of a picnic, that'd be too much. Pace yourself. Take a breath, and let the idea percolate.

“That sounds, nice.” The angel admitted. “But, dear, you know we can’t.”

Maybe it was the “dear” that set Crowley off, sounding so confoundedly sweet! “Why not!?” he heard himself demanding. Well, so much for cool! By coming right out and asking that, he’d just given Aziraphale an opening to articulate _exactly_ why not. Damn it. Amateur move.

“It’s just that…” with a helpless little gesture the angel said simply, “you’re a demon..." and he felt wretched, as always.

“No!” Crowley gasped in mock surprise. “Aziraphale, you astound me! I didn’t know you cared! I didn’t think you’d noticed.”

Crowley used his given name so infrequently that the humor, if that’s what it was, sounded strained. The angel tried to smile, and Crowley laughed too, which made it seem like everything was going to be alright. 

Then, in mid-guffaw, the demon’s energy turned on a dime, and he kept talking.

“It’s not like you haven’t pointed that out before, or anything. Like once a year for 6,000 years! But hey, I get it. It’s important to remember where things stand. We wouldn’t want one of us to forget or something. Lord knows what’d happen.” Crowley clinched his teeth and jumped up from the bench, fueled with eons of pent up frustration. He tried not to think about what might come out of his mouth next. He just hung on to his anger and decided to ride it out. 

“AND, you’ve got to make sure I’m not deceiving you. My lot do that, remember. You’ve got to make sure I’m not pretending to be something I’m not. You know me, playing the saint all the time, just to confuse you!”

“You never.” Aziraphale muttered. He sat straight and still, letting Crowley rain down his energetic sarcasm.

“Better safe than sorry, though! How about this? Every conversation we have should start this way. Get it out in the open, before we say anything else.” Roleplaying now, he said cheerfully, “_Hi angel, how’s it going? … You’re a demon! …. Right you are. … You’re bad. … Can’t deny it! …. I don’t even know why we’re having this conversation, then. … Me neither._ That would save us a lot of trouble.”

Aziraphale swallowed hard. “You’re so –“ he choked on the word ‘hurt’, certain that it would inflame Crowley’s already wounded pride. “You’re so angry!” he said in amazement.

“Why would I be angry?” Crowley almost shouted. “You’re an angel, as we’ve frequently established. A very TRUTHFUL angel! Saying only the God’s honest truth about me, every time.” He collapsed back on to the bench and stared morosely into the middle distance.

“I’m sorry. I wish it didn’t have to be this way,” Aziraphale said softly.

“Yeah.”

“I think about it sometimes.” Make that a lot, or all the time, actually. “And it’s down to our natures. I mean there’s two sides, and then there’s us. We can’t change what sides we’re on.”

“Mmm.” Crowley hummed, noncommittally. The demon had begun to wonder, privately, quietly, whether there was, in fact, a third option. Since the night Aziraphale had given him the holy water, Crowley had begun thinking that his loyalty might lie elsewhere entirely. What if they didn't side with Heaven OR Hell, but with each other. He’d begun to think of them as being on _their side, _but he knew that idea wouldn’t make any sense at all to the angel.

“One on each side,” Aziraphale continued, ”And what else can we do? I’m an angel, and you, you’re –“ 

“Yep,” Crowley interjected, curtly. They were right back at the beginning again. 

He pulled his glasses down and rubbed his eyelids. Sometimes, Crowley thought, the Fall had been nothing. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. The Fall had been horrible, but it had been over pretty quickly, in the scheme of things. Fire and brimstone and pain, but then, on the upside, he’d gained a pretty clear life’s purpose out of the deal. And Crowley could bloody well take care of himself from now on, thank you very much! But he could never have predicted this eventual side effect... a relationship (if you could call it that) which would bring him more suffering and greater indignities than the Fall itself. 

Here he was, sitting next to the only other being he cared about. And as nice as it seemed just to hang out on a bench together, he was going to be reminded every day just how _Fallen_ he was and how _unlovable_ he was because of it. Crowley might get pissed off sometimes. He might even leave in a huff. But then, he’d eventually end up right back here on the bench because it was better than nothing. The bench was fine. 

Things would probably go on this way for the rest of his life, which was the rest of forever. God was clever with her punishments.

Crowley settled his glasses back into place. “So, I think that about covers it.” He slapped his thighs and prepared to rise.

Aziraphale surprised them both by touching the demon’s arm. “Wait, don’t go.”

“Don’t worry, angel. We can try it all over again in a few months. Maybe next year, when we both aren’t so busy.”

“You mean we can still go –“

Crowley cut him off, “- go ahead and have this exact conversation again if you’d like, yeah. Like you said, we can’t change who we are, right? And we both know, it’s not like I’m going anywhere, really.”

“Except for Brighton, shortly.” Aziraphale reminded him. Why did the angel always sound so composed, like he was just confirming a little entry in his mental calendar?

“Yeah, right, Brighton.”

Aziraphale was thoughtful for a moment. “I bet they are in need of some love and comfort and blessings and such like in Brighton.”

“Um?”

“Especially if a demon I’ve heard is going to be there causing trouble.”

Crowley stared, not quite allowing himself to hope. “The Arrangement?” he asked.

“Stay out of each other’s way, cancel each other out,” Aziraphale confirmed, “But I figure the best way to cancel each other’s efforts _more_ _precisely_ might be for us to stick together.”

The demon perked up significantly, and looked at his friend, impressed. Why hadn’t he used that argument from the get-go? “I know you wouldn’t want to let me get a mile outside of London without dogging my steps with goodness.”

“And, if you think about it, the whole zero-sum game only works when we are actually _together_. Isn’t that why we both live in London, after all?” (Was that actually why? Crowley wondered.) “So, I’d better come too, and… well… distract you from doing whatever you’re supposed to be doing.”

“Sounds all very logical and moral to me.” Crowley was suddenly very content with how it had all worked out, especially the idea of Aziraphale distracting him all weekend. His previous anger forgotten, part of his brain began jumping ahead to booking a nice bed and breakfast.

Aziraphale reached out and turned Crowley’s chin back toward him with one finger. “For the record, I get it. Really, I do. And I’m sorry it’s always so damn...” He wanted to say something, but for all the books he’d read, Aziraphale found that he just didn’t have the words. “Look, I do know I’m an angel and you’re a demon. I think that’s precisely why I should go with you.”

“To cancel me out, I know.”

“No.” The angel’s gaze was meltingly earnest as he searched for the words and hoped that they wouldn’t constitute a sin. “No, more like, _balance,_ I think. Because… one’s not much good without the other. What would Heaven and Hell do without each other, really? And you and I, we’re just… after all these years… you and I are just better together.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. This one ends with a little less angst than the last one, as Aziraphale begins to figure it out in stages, like the slow retreat of an ice-age. I guess that's why we call it a SLOW burn, because otherwise, it would "go to fast for me, Crowley".
> 
> It's funny, these two talk to each other all night long, in my head. Then, I'm forced to write down their dialog the next day. I'm completely exhausted, but more inspired and connected than I've been in years. Plus this community (your comments and kudos) are making me feel like we are all part of something so beautiful! *sniff*


End file.
